WAR- We Are Right

I read a reflection of someone who is a human rights activist. She has been working with groups of people who are victims of war since generations ago. She talked about a history of war that ran from their grandparents to today. A history only they share as it is life as they know it, their reality.

Right now, my country is at war. There are rebels down south of the islands and soldiers are fighting them of. But aside from real bullets, there is another war happening elsewhere – a war of words.

Words may not kill anyone directly unless you die of a heart attack after reading a harsh comment or due to panic attacks after being threathened on/off line. I do not even want to start on how awful things are on social media. Maybe politics and political beliefs should be dealt properly when online, as anywhere else. Anyway, I think most of you get the picture since it happens to most parts of the world right now.

I want people to get involved in their community, to care about what happens in the country. But I think there are too many opinions (and insults) floating around but not much solution being offered.

The sad part is, while the south island is being devastated by bullets and bombs the north is being torn apart by people who are “experts” on what not to do.

“Do not implement this because it can be abused.”

“Do not get in the way, you have no idea what they need down there.”

It became a war of the north vs the south. A war of supporters from previous government rule to this administration. A war of who is right or wrong.

It is just frustrating because while they are all arguing, people in the affected city are shaking in fear for their lives. Mothers are desperately looking for milk to feed their infants, elders for means to get their maintenance medicines and children worry if they will ever be able to graduate.

Each camp on the north island are fighting over who is right without listening to real voices of those who are affected. These people do not care who is right or wrong. They care for the terror to stop. They care to know if they have houses to come back to. If their families and friends all made it out safe.

In this battle, no one in the north will ever be able to completely say they were right. Whatever the intentions were, those words will not mean anything until we do something concrete.

The people in the south have very different experience from the north island. It is something only they can truly tell us.

Similar to how we have our own experiences our personal lives intertwine with what happens in our family and community creating a very unique sense of what happened – a personal history. Still, our personal histories are all written on a narrative of a country bigger than what we persoanlly experienced.

War happens when we force our truth to others. War happens when we do not realize and accept differences. War happens when we forcefully believe that we are right – all the time.

Maybe we should stop looking at ourselves too much and have the humility to look at others and truly try to understand where they are coming from.

All the words we throw at each other are like daggers we inflict on each other, severing a body that is already sick.

Instead of using our energies in all the negative bickering wouldn’t it be better to look for a solution? Not only for a solution to the rebels now but a solution for the many different, interconnected conflicts that wound our brothers in the south.

If we can not be part of a lasting solution, maybe we can at least not cause more pain. After all, no matter what political color you wear, we are of the same flesh and blood.